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My mother Eve, stands here in front of her older sisters Rachel, Annie, and Esther 1915 in her tight boots and crumpled dress looking rather sad. I remember the love/hate relationship she had with them.

She often told me that her sisters, rather than her mother saw to her daily needs.

Throughout her life, if she had a problem she could not deal with herself, she would phone her sisters for their advice. When she was ill she

depended on them to take me in sometimes for weeks at a time.

Because they shared the responsibility, somehow I did not develop a bond or relationship with any of my aunts.

I was invisible running round with

my cousins or, when I was older, sitting at the bottom of the stairs reading my cousins comics.

This photo shows my mother and her sisters in their seventies.

My mother is now the tallest one.

Towards the end of her life my eldest aunt refused to carry on helping my mother with her problems. She decided that she had enough of sharing

the burden; so when the whole family congregated for a wedding or a funeral, she did not speak to my mother.

I grew up determined not to rely on anyone in my family. I decided to learn from my own mistakes. And there were many.